


Tattooed on the Heart

by Whis



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, M/M, Other, lot of Christopher and Buck moments here, shannon mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22593157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whis/pseuds/Whis
Summary: The Five times Eddie left Christopher with Buck and the one that Christopher left Eddie with Buck
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 18
Kudos: 428





	Tattooed on the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nilshki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilshki/gifts), [diazevan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diazevan/gifts).



> Thanks to the amazing [nilshki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilshki/pseuds/nilshki) for all the help, support and being my beta, and [diazevan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diazevan/pseuds/diazevan)  
> for being right there
> 
> This is the answer to a prompt in Tumblr

##  1\. Do it yourself

Eddie looks like shit, though he is Eddie andhe is capable of taking Buck’s breath away with his beauty on his worst day, and this is not it, at least Buck doesn’t think so. Buck, however, is another story altogether, he is pretty sure he is the one having his absolutely worst, although there is always tomorrow, he thinks.

“Hey Bucky,” a voice says at Eddie’s back, prompting a smile on the young man’s face. Christopher has that effect on him, even when the kid’s voice is small and not the joyful yell he used to give him, but his mother just died a couple of weeks ago and of course, the little guy is going to be sad.

These days, Buck is having problems reminding himself that other people have problems too, that he isn’t the only person in the world in pain and having a shitty day.

He reciprocates Christopher’s salute and gets back to look at his best friend, hoping for an explanation. It takes Eddie a few more seconds than usual, but he finally speaks. He still sounds like himself even though he doesn’t look like it.

“There is a problem with some… Documents and I need to fix it… Abuela is out of town, and Carla has some family thing, and my aunt has to work, and I need someone to look after Chris.”

Buck blinks repeatedly. Eddie can’t be asking him to take care of Christopher. He is in a wheelchair, still riled up with pain, fear, and stubbornness. His house is a mess, his couch has become an improvised bed, and there is food, tissues and empty beer cans everywhere. It’s not the best place for a kid, or for anyone for that matter, but Buck is determined to prove he can live on his own, and by his own terms, thank you very much.

Before Buck can voice his negative and all the reasons why this is a very bad idea, Eddie looks at him with pleading eyes and says, “Please Buck, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.” 

Buck can’t say no to that, not that he can deny a lot of things to Eddie, or Christopher for that matter, and the kid is looking at him with the puppy eyes force. He shouldn’t have shown him that trick.

So Buck accepts and he is left with an eight-nine year old kid, alone, for the first time. It’s not that he hasn’t spent a lot of time with the kid, he has, and they get along wonderfully. But Eddie has always been there as a buffer.

Chris and him look at each other for a while, they both uncomfortable and lost in their own minds. The man tries to initiate some small talk, but that only earns him a weird look from the kid and some polite answer.

After a new painful silence, Christopher looks at him with a weird expression that fills Buck with fear and concern. Who knew a kid could be so scary. Not because they are dangerous, but because they ask questions, and they are honest in a way that adults don’t dare to be, and Buck knows that some complicated and emotionally taxing thing is coming.

“I miss my mom” there it is “and I want to do something but I don’t know how” yep, scary. But Buck is used to getting into falling houses full of fires, he can do this, he can do whatever the kid needs to feel better. He fights the tears that the confession brought to his eyes, and tries to keep calm when he answers

“Okay, what do you want to do?”

“I dunno,” the kid says with a shrug. He looks so small and lost, and Buck is hit with the sudden need of fixing it, though he doesn’t even know what and how.

“Okay, let’s see… You miss your mom, and you want to do something to… stop missing her?”

The kid bites his lips and looks at him with a mixture of disappointment, annoyance and indignation as if Buck had to have guessed what the kid was talking about

“Okay, sorry, that is not it….”

“I want to do something so my mom knows I miss her.”

That makes sense, a lot of sense. And Buck starts to get it. It’s exactly how he felt when his grandma died. She was the woman who raised him and he had been heartbroken at the moment, and so afraid of a lot of things. But the most prominent feeling had been the need to communicate his grandma how much he has loved her, how much he would miss her, and how he would never forget her.

“Okay buddy, I think we can work with that,” he says with a smile that he hopes expresses all the compassion and love he is feeling at the moment, and seeing as Christopher answers with the same kind of smile, he guesses it did its job.

Back then, Buck made a comic for his grandma as she used to love that hidden talent of her grandchild, but Christopher doesn’t want to draw anything, he says he has done a lot of those and those are for the fridge and not for graves. Buck thinks it’s a strange logic but he can’t help but actually agree with him. 

After so brainstorming, they decide to look up ideas on youtube. Well, Buck does, Christopher is reluctant. But it doesn’t take long for the kid to get into the idea, and when he sees a video with DIY flowers, he is sold.

They settle for some flowers made with the caps from plastic bottles and straws, which they don’t have. Luckily for them, Buck has excellent neighbors, who don’t doubt on helping when Christopher tells them the whole story -it’s very hard to say  _ no _ to an  _ ‘I want to make flowers for my mommy’s grave’ _ . So they go door to door, as some kind of delayed Halloween, asking for plastic bottles and making some small conversation that actually makes them laugh and smile more often than not. It’s the most fun Buck has had since the explosion and Ali left, and he bets the kid is feeling something similar. They enjoy it almost as much as they do when they start with the actual work of doing the flowers. 

Buck helps as much as he can, but without stepping into Chris’s shoes, he knows the kid is independent and wants to be the one who makes the present, as it should be. So Buck outlines the flowers on a sheet and passes the material to the kid so he can glue together the pieces. They find out it’s easier to keep the straw if they keep the piece of paper glued behind, and after a couple of mistakes, they decide to change the paper for some cardboard that Buck has around.

By the time that Eddie is back they have a colorful, if weird, bunch of flowers. They are far from perfect, but they are Christopher’s, and the kid is so proud of himself that it is easy to ignore the glue and the sloppy painting that adorns the plastic bottle that is being used as the vase.

Eddie just opens and closes his mouth with tears flowing and a grateful smile.

After the Diaz family leaves, Buck is faced with a messier house and lighter heart.

  
  


##  2\. On my feet

It’s weird. His legs are wobbly and trembling, and Buck thinks the bad one is way too thin to hold all his weight. It looks like an alien piece of flesh that belongs to someone else. Buck doesn’t recognize it as his, and some days it’s hard to resist the desire of cutting it off and burn it.

And yet, it holds.

It’s painful, every step is like million of tiny sharp crystals breaking his skin

And yet, he walks, or something like it.

The therapist tells him that is a big victory, that he did great and it’s wonderful, and Buck wants to believe him, but it’s hard when he is back at this flat, unable to move because it hurts too much.

He is looking at his collection of pills and alcohol and fighting against the dark cloud pushing him to just  _ finish it already _ , when he hears a key. He knows it can only be Maddie, Bobby or Eddie, and the idea of any of them seeing him like that has him in a panic.

He can hide everything before they get there just because he has a pill bag nearby and the bottles were the small kind.

It’s Eddie and he is bringing Christopher, which is enough to put a honest smile on Buck’s face. He never knows if Eddie leaves Chris with him because he needs help or because he knows it helps Buck, in any case, the blonde is just happy to have the kid with him for the day. It will keep him away from the bag mocking him from under the couch.

His leg is killing him though, and the kid can see something is up with his Buck right away, so he asks and the man answers, as honestly as he can because for some reason he can’t fully understand, he can’t lie to the kid. 

“Today I’ve walked without my crutches for the first time and it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Buck feels a deep shame. Here he is, whining and complaining about his recovery being too slow to a kid with CP who has to walk with crutches every day of his life. He feels selfish, stupid, greedy, weak and a lot of things that he can’t name because his vocabulary is not that extensive.

And yet, Chris smiles, wide and excited, so honestly unadulterated happy for his friend, and even though Buck knows the kid hasn’t compared their situations -the thought probably hasn’t crossed his mind- the man has, and he has never felt more ashamed of himself, not even when he was Buck 1.0, or the version before that one, who was even worse.

“That is so cool Buck!!!! You will be walking in no time, and you’ll be back to be a firefighter and we’ll go to....”

Buck allows Christopher excitement and happiness to wash over him. It’s contagious and by the time Eddie picks his son up, the bag with the pills and the bottles have become a distant memory.

##  3\. Getting back

Buck feels he can breath again. He is getting back to his life, his job and his family. It has been hard, so hard.

He hasn’t told anyone, not even Eddie, not even after he drops Christopher at his house with some lame excuse. At this point, Buck has admitted that Eddie is bringing Christopher to help him and not the other way around, and the truth is that it’s helping. The kid has become his rock, and some people would find it sad and pathetic, sometimes he does too, but the kid is awesome and never fails in making him feel beloved and admired, and that is all he needs at the moment.

It makes sense to tell him first, if nothing else to see his eyes getting wide and bright and his smile filling with pride and awe

“That is so cool!!!! Dad is gonna be so happy, he misses you kid.” he tells him, and he looks so serious and business-like.

“Can you keep a secret?” Buck asks, with the same seriousness that Christopher is putting into the whole conversation. When the kid nods, eager to earn the right to hear that secret, Buck smiles softly at him and says “I miss him too, a lot.”

And it’s true. He misses Eddie with a fierceness that leaves him breathless, as if he was the leg he almost lost under that truck. It’s not that they don’t see each other, they do, but it’s not the same, and it’s never by themselves, there is always somebody else, or some business to deal with. And Buck misses the job, the dance they realize when they have to climb and run into the danger to save somebody else’s life’s. He misses the looks and the unspoken message they send through their gazes.

“I can’t wait to get back to work with him again.”

“And keep him safe.” Christopher says, and it’s not a question, it’s a statement of fact, and even though Buck doesn’t have the same kind of faith the kid has on him, he nods and says,“Always, I’ll always have his back, and yours… I’ll always have your back” he promises… And he believes it.

##  4\. Against the tide

Christopher is just sitting there with a big smile, waiting for him to say something, do something. But Buck has no idea of pretty much anything

Just one week before after he almost died because of a clot in his lungs. One week ago he lost everything that matters to him -his job, his family, his future. Just a couple of days after he gave up.

And now, Eddie just drops up his kid, tells him he shouldn’t feel bad and hopes it will magically fix everything, and Buck is just tired of the continuous speech that everybody is releasing on his lap. 

He has the right to be mad, and he is entitled to be sad and mourn everything he has lost these last months, and everybody should just shut the fuck up and fuck off and leave him be, at least for a couple of fucking days.

“What do you want to do,” Buck asks, trying to look happy and invested even if he is not feeling it, but the kid is an innocent party and the only good thing going on in his life these days, so he makes an honest effort to play the role.

Chris just shrugs and looks at him with that strange demeanor he gets from time to time and that makes him look older than he really is. It’s always a strange look in a kid that most of the time is the happiest human being Buck has ever seen, but he knows too well how the happiest people can also be the saddest. It breaks his heart to think that Chris has that kind of moments when he isn’t feeling his own smiles.

Buck sighs, closes his eyes and tries to get a hold on his feelings, but Chris can read him like an open book, better than any adult he knows, and isn’t that the scariest thing?

“We can stay here if you want.”

And shamefully, Buck considers the idea for a couple of seconds, minutes actually. But it’s just no fair for the kid, and probably it isn’t fair for himself

“Do you want to go to the theater?”

Chris nods, it’s not enthusiastic, but it’s something, so he looks up the information on his phone, finds a movie that could work for the both of them and sends the message to Eddie.

By the time they are in the car, Chris is talking non-stop and Buck is starting to feel better.

It’s a sunny day, a beautiful day and Buck realizes the last thing he wants to do is to spend hours in a dark room looking at a screen.

He decides going to the pier might be a better plan.

He was wrong.

But he kept his promise. Badly, hardly, and full of failures. But he had his back.

##  5\. Dry

This time, Buck is sure Eddie left Christopher with him because he had nobody else.

It doesn’t matter how many times he says he has forgiven him and how many times they flirt in the kitchen or Buck organizes a full Christmas party so his best friend can spend the holidays with his son, the trust is broken in a way that Buck doesn’t know how to fix. 

It’s ironic how Buck fighting for his right to get back to work has done more damage than a tsunami.

He can only hope Eddie is not going back to street fighting, but when the man tells him he has a date Buck feels that is even worse.

He really believed they were getting somewhere. It was taking them time, sure, but if there is something that Buck has learnt from the whole ordeal with his fucked up leg is patience.

And it has paid out in the form of a night babysitting Christopher while his friend is out there with someone else, eating, drinking and fucking. After all Chris is not just staying a couple of hours, he is spending the night.

“What do you want to do? Do you want to watch Dory?”

The kid smirks devilishly and Buck groans. He knows what it means. Another night of watching the Minions.

So he does, after they cook mac and cheese and eat. Luckily for him, the kid falls asleep sooner rather than later, and Buck puts Chris in his bed and resigns himself to sleep on the couch.

It’s late when he hears Christopher yelling his name, and fuck, Buck hasn’t run so fast in his entire life, besides when a wave was chasing him and his precious cargo. He almost falls a couple of times -stupid stairs- and by the time he gets there, Christopher is awake, wide eyes and ragged breaths escaping his little mouth, and yet the kid looks still out of it, in fact, he doesn’t realize Buck is there until he shouts his name a few times.

“Buck?” he whispers, and his voice is so small, weak and full of misery and disbelief that Buck’s heart shatters in million of tiny pieces.

“Yeah, kiddo, I’m here, I’m not leaving,” he whispers, hugging him in a vain effort to calm the child down. He knows Christopher is having nightmares about the tsunami, Eddie told him when he yelled at him at the grocery, but the subject hasn’t been touched again because the tsunami it’s the big elephant in every room that nobody mentions and Buck is so sick of it. He has nightmares too, and he has so many things he needs to say that they bottle up in his mouth and don’t come out. So he keeps repeating the same thing like a mantra,  _ he is here, he is not leaving, they are okay.  _

“I’m sorry,” Christopher murmurs after a while, and Buck doesn’t know what he is talking about, he is the one who is sorry, should be, have to be sorry.

“What? Christopher, you have nothing to be sorry about…”

“I let it go.”

“What?!”

“You had to save that girl, and I should have grabbed…”

Buck doesn’t even let him finish the thought, even though logically he knows the kid probably needs to say it, but no, he can’t allow it, he can enable those kind of feelings, Christopher is not a fault here, Buck is.

“No, no, no… Chris hear me out, okay I need you to listen to me… I really do… It was my job to take care of you…”

“But Buck,” the kid protests.

“I shouldn’t have left you, okay, I’m the adult and you are the kid, and it was my job to take care of you.”

“But you are a firefighter, it’s your job to save people.”

“But you are more important, I should have focused on you…”

Christopher denies with his head, but it’s weaker, and there is some kind of hope in his eyes. Buck knows the kid doesn’t fully believe him, doesn’t agree with him, but he will get there, even if he has to repeat the same thing a million of times

“My therapist says it was nobody fault, it was a natural disaster.”

And yeah, that is true, the logical side of his mind knows it’s a fact, but emotionally, it’s hard to believe it. He nods and agrees though, because it might help Christopher to sleep better and lessen the guilt.

“I wish my dad was here with us.” Chris says after a while, when they gave up sleeping and decided to move back to the couch to watch something on Netflix. Buck knows Eddie would kill him if he was there, it’s 1AM and he has the kid watching something called  _ Ladybug,  _ that might be cartoons but doesn’t seem to be too child friendly, but he is too sleepy, and Christopher is too.

Or so he thinks. He doesn’t realize Christopher is fully awake when Buck says “me too kiddo, me too.”

##  +1

It’s Valentine's Day, and Buck had plans. Watching Friends reruns and drinking a lot wasn’t his habitual way of spending the night, but he is not in the mood for dating someone when he is pathetically in love with his best friend. Sure, the mentioned friend is currently dating someone else, and having tons of sex with people who aren’t Buck, and probably don’t have a dick, but that doesn’t change his feelings.

When Carla called him it was sort of a relief. He hasn’t seen Christopher since he spent the night and they talked about the tsunami. He suspects Eddie wasn’t very happy about that one, but his friend hasn’t told him anything, not that he has spoken to him too much since he started to date again.

In any case, when Carla asks him to get to the Diaz’s house because Eddie is out and she has an unexpected family emergency , Buck accepts right away. A night taking care of one of his favorite human beings is better than drunkenness and loneliness. 

He tries to not speed, but he is eager to get to his destination and just leave the world outside. He is in his jeep, doing his business, and the world keeps reminding him this is the most romantic night of the year and he is alone.

He is quite confused when he gets to the house and sees his friend’s new truck in its habitual spot. He was pretty sure his friend has plans, he told him so, and also, why would have Carla called him if Eddie was already there?

He stops his jeep, takes a deep breath and tries to prepare himself for the worst. For some reason, he feels as if he was about to go into a collapsing building.

* * *

  
  


It’s the third girl. He should have known by now that the speed dating thing is not working. It’s the fourth night he has tried, and he has met some interesting people, some of them really interesting, like the girl who had been in Afghanistan, had a kid, loved Metallica, Molotov and could bend her legs behind her neck. But it was always the same, at some point his brain would remind him that neither of those people were Buck, and he would be immensely happier if he were in Buck’s house with his two favorite people in the world at each side of him.

Carla becomes his savior, with her call and his request to get back right away because she needs to get home. He doesn’t even ask for details, he doesn’t care about her reasons, he just hopes everything is right and nobody is hurt. Beyond that, he only sees a way out, and promises himself, not for the first time, he won’t get back.

He is lying to himself and he knows it, and he does so because he is a coward and an idiot who doesn’t dare to take the last step or give the last push. He is too afraid of rejection and losing his best friend, and doesn’t allow himself to believe he might get an  _ I love you back. _

When he gets home, he opens the door expecting to see Chris on the couch and Carla waiting for him at the door, impatient and with her face full of worry. 

What he finds is Abuela, Carla and Chris at the door, full of smiles, with Christopher’s bag ready and a delicious smell coming from the inside of his house, and when he opens the mouth to ask, they just step aside.

He is still trying to catch up with the whole situation, when he hears the unmistakable sound of Buck’s jeep. 

_ And then things become crystal clear. _

* * *

“Eddie? Carla?” Buck asks, as confused by the whole situation as his best friend, “what is happening?”

Eddie closes his eyes and wills everything and everybody to disappear, but he could live with him being the one vanishing. One quick look and he seems the same feeling reflected on Buck’s face. At least they are on the same page. 

Eddie is the first one to recover. He is a father, and that is something he can use to his advantage when the situation asks for it.

“I really hope this is not a joke young man,” which is a big lie, because he really hopes this is a joke and he can spend the next minutes or hours having a chat with his kids about jokes, pranks and a lot of things that don’t involve Buck, candles, flowers, wine and lasagna.

Christopher stares him as if he was the most stupid human being in the world, which admittedly, he might be, but he won’t admit that, and Carla and Abuela seem to share the sentiment. However, his son seems to think that he doesn’t deserve an answer and ignores him in favour of Buck, which isn’t new and usually fills him with warmth and love, but at that moment just pisses him off.

Buck allows Christopher to grab his hand and tries to not earn a gaze like the one Eddie got. It’s funny in a not funny at all kind of way.

“Buck, I need you to take care of my dad.”

“You what?” Eddie asks indignant and dumbfounded, not that Buck doesn’t feel like an idiot himself, but he is willing to wait for the kid to make his point and then deal with the afterwards. Not to mention that Carla is there sending them some threatening looks that Buck doesn’t want to test. 

“My dad is sad, and he is much happier when you are here, and you have taken care of me these last months, now my dad is the one who needs you take care of him.”

“You are crossing a line,” Eddie warns, taking a step towards his son, but then Buck stops him, putting himself between both.

“Eddie… Your son is worried about you…” he whispers, hoping against hope the words enter the fuzz of rage that is starting to paint his handsome face. He understands though, Eddie feels ashamed and humiliated, and Christopher shouldn’t have done any of that, and Carla and Abuela should have known better, but the kid is trying to help, the women are trying to help the kid, and perhaps Eddie too. He doesn’t want to believe they are also trying to help him because they’ve seen through his mask and know he is pining like a fucking teenager.

“Buck, they are trying to hook us up.”

“I know, and I know you have plans and you probably want to go back to her, but we should listen to what Christopher has to say, he hasn’t done any of this to hurt you.”

Eddie bites his lips to stop himself from spilling the beans, he doesn’t want to tell Buck he doesn’t want to go back to anything, he’d rather stay here with him and have a romantic dinner with him, not only tonight but for the rest of their lives. 

He nods though and makes a gesture with his hand to invite the kid to keep going on.

“I want you to date,” he says, earning Carla’s laugh.

Buck almost chokes in his own air and Eddie starts shouting.

“What? Christopher!!! What the he- helicopter are you talking about?” He is in time to cut himself off before he lets out a swearing word, but as soon as the words are out Buck starts laughing, quite hysterically, and Carla and Abuela don’t take too long following suit.

Yet Eddie and Christopher keep having an intense battle of stares, both Diazs are stubborn - _ como mulas  _ his grandma always says. 

In the end, Christopher wins, if nothing else, because Eddie actually wants to have that date, and he knows is he against Carla, Abuela and Christopher. He recognises a losing battle when he sees one.

So Abuela takes Christopher and Carla takes herself to her own Valentines date.

“The lasagna looks delicious,” Eddie says after the door closes behind Abuela and both men stay behind. 

It’s not until they are alone that they look at each other, really look at each other. Eddie is wearing formal black clothes and his hair gelled up for his date while Buck is wearing a simple black leather jacket, a tight white shirt and his hair is a mess of curls that Eddie loves. Suddenly Buck is painfully aware of how underdressed he looks in contrast to Eddie, which reminds him that Eddie did have plans for the night that didn’t involve Buck.

“Yeah… But… You had plans, I mean, you had a date, I’m sure if you call her....”

“I lied,” Eddie cut him off, because he realizes it’s now or never, and Buck hasn’t left yet, which means he is not disgusted by the idea of having a date with him “I’m not dating anyone.”

Buck burrows his eyebrows and tilts his head in that cute way he does when he is confused and doesn’t have hope of understanding on his own.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m doing the speed dating thing”

“Speed dating? Seriously? Why did you lie to me?” Eddie realizes he is not angry, he is just confused and disappointed, but also, Eddie thinks he sounds hopeful, which makes him hopeful too, so he decides to go for the win.

“I was trying to get over you,” he murmurs, walking to Buck, keeping his gaze on him, trying to convey everything he has been feeling in one look, one big gesture

He is finally there, in front of Buck, so close he can feel his breath in his mouth, his warmth on his skin. 

“Did it work?” Buck asks because he feels the urge to know, he needs to make sure this is it, they are on the same page, and they won’t chicken out this time

“No, it didn’t. I’m pretty sure nothing will make me get over you.” 

When the man you love tells you something like that there is just one thing you can do.

Buck grabs Eddie’s face with both hands and kisses him. It’s languid and sweet, they explore each other with their mouths and their tongues until the lack of air forces them to break the kiss.

“I love you too, I’ve always loved you,”

Buck murmurs the words into Eddie’s mouth, hoping they travel deep inside the brunette and burn themselves into his heart.

Like a new brand.

Like a tattoo on the heart.


End file.
